I’ve been catching myself shallow breathing or slightly clenching my jaw, feeling uneasy. When this happens, you’re supposed to check in with yourself and run a little ‘diagnostic’ checklist to see what is causing it. My checklist is sometimes rather expansive. Is it because of my posture? Is it TMJ? Allergies? The clowns in this election? Preventable global suffering caused by my tax dollars? Avoiding micro plastics and PFAS? My Doordash bill? My hormones? Navigating interpersonal conflict? Piles of laundry? Inflation a.k.a. the crushing weight of unhinged capitalism? Wanting to protect my female body? Some frustrating cycles of behavior I’m stuck in? Disengaged citizens not using their resources to help others? Parenting a toddler? The financial cost of….doing literally anything? Or was it just how many hours I slept last night? Probably “yes, and” to all of these, like a bad never ending improv series. As I write this, I just received a New York Times push notification for a new series called “What to eat on a burning planet”. Lovely. I guess I’ll add that to the list since figuring out what to eat is usually pretty high up there. On occasion, I try to follow up this feeling with some box breathing or rolling my shoulders back, which actually does help a remarkable amount. But I think this is about a kind of fatigue more than anything else. Something about the now we’re in feels like an ultramarathon of totally very not okay. Some very heavy clouds are floating over the beauty and bliss of the every day we’re lucky to have. And yes there is in fact still beauty and bliss - I see it everywhere; daily hummingbird sightings in our front yard, palm tree sunsets, texts/reels from friends that make me cackle out loud, nerdy Pommel horse guy’s unfettered joy, and my baby’s exploding development which includes responding accurately to a wide variety of questions with confident “yups!” and “nopes!” (it’s as good as it sounds).
My list also has sub-lists, some of which are easier to share publicly. Like in this month alone, July 2024, we’ve seen the United States Supreme Court provide unrestricted impunity to the office of the President, overturn the Chevron case (and with it decimating protection of all things such as air quality, water quality, working conditions, food and drug safety, climate change, civil liberties, nuclear energy), and reverse bump stock bans. It was just this month, post assassination attempt, that the terrifying ex-President named a new exploitive couch-lover (that part was very weird and sadly apparently false) VP candidate with a wife who proves Zora Neale Hurston’s adage that all skin folk aren’t kin folk. With them, the much discussed conservative Project 2025 plan, which reads like it was written satirically, accelerates the very real threats to women’s health and education amongst other categories. And many people continue to loudly proclaim that their own financial needs trump the civil and existential rights of others. Meanwhile, there is also an ongoing global Genocide, a regional war bubbling, and an international government arguing the merits of rape as retribution, out loud. This is not even an exhaustive list of the month’s happenings, because, ding ding ding, I’m tired. In between the energy expended on travel, hosting, or the rigamarole of necessary to-dos of my life, I’m fatigued by the each successive piece of news - I can’t even remember it all. In addition to each one of these issues having generational ripple effects, the macro issues are causing a new level of hyper-vigilance on a micro level in order to protect yourself or your family. Do I now need a reverse osmosis machine at home to clean my water just because Clarence Thomas wanted a free yacht vacay? Or do I need to avoid trips to Texas, Florida, and a slew of other states when I’m pregnant just in case I need *actual* emergency healthcare that values my life? We all know the importance of remaining informed, engaged and continuing to organize in order to effect real change, but damn if that isn’t hard too.
I sometimes feel the pressure to make my storylines, internal to myself or external like this, have a happy ending. Narrative psychology also tells us sometimes more important than our life events themselves is how we tell the story of our life. The how, such as telling it as a contamination sequence (when things go from good to bad) versus a redemptive sequence (when things go from bad to good), can palpably change our wellbeing. I can get on board with that, and in this case, I do genuinely believe that none of these swirling clouds above are permanent fixtures - this sequence certainly isn’t over yet. But I do also believe there is a true freedom in simply saying - things feel really heavy in this moment of time, inside and outside my house, and I am so tired. This honest professing of how I (we?) really feel doesn’t mean we can’t simultaneously experience happiness or joy, and in fact, I’d like to believe that by sharing this we can also share in the healing that comes from just holding hands. We’ll probably have a better chance of exiting swampland together. I also know this could just part of the cycle of change. I bounce back and forth between informed pessimism and informed optimism. According the visualization below, I’m on my way to eventual success. Yay!
So, '“nopes!” I don’t like this fatigue. I’m un-ironically tired of it. I feel it across my body and my heart, my joints ache as my motivation weans. As someone who attempts to channel despair into action, I’ve been wildly googling antidotes. Investing in gratitude, sunshine, creativity, community, and a new pack of sleeping mouth tape is about as much as I’ve gathered so far. This past weekend some rejuvenation took the form of a sunshine filled rendezvous with girlfriends who also happen to be fellow soccer moms (I use this term very generously), followed by our toddlers patiently taking turns sharing cucumbers (“we’re doing great sweeties!”). And this weekend we are off to a wedding. Alongside 9 hours of flying with a toddler, I know there will also be many special moments I’m already grateful for. But I think I need some more specific insights and repeatable tricks, and so, in a busy summer like this where I’ve been unable to dedicate much time to my creative outlets (including this Substack), I’m crowdsourcing more of your tips.
How do you navigate your own fatigue, whether it’s from your life or the world? What helps you process through it and not just escape it? How do you remain an engaged citizen for yourself and for others? What rejuvenates you? Reply or comment and maybe I can piece your tidbits together to build a mini fountain of youth(ful spirit) as a therapeutic we can all share.
With love and thanks from me, the hummingbirds, and some cloudless blue skies awaiting us.
ICYMI: career guilt | where are you from | mama uses good words and bad | do you have to know sorrow to know kindness | captain’s log | what do we owe each other? | these four walls | count your regrets
I love this question and definitely want to hear other people’s answers, as this struggle feels very real (and beautifully described above!). I think I approach this with some mix of 1) resting, 2) recharging. And there’s like a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, as there are so many layers of fatigue, like you mentioned. Sometimes I just need real, immediate, physical rest like a power nap or even better, an earlier bedtime. If that need is basically met, and the emotional fatigue feels stronger, I might take a break from news/ social media or ask for my partner to take our kid to the park alone on a weekend morning so I can chill at home (and NOT use that time to do chores). Then if taking a break doesn’t feel like an urgent need, I can move up the hierarchy to do things that actually “fill my cup” (pardon the cringe phrase lol). So for example hanging out with friends, seeing live music, making jewelry, doing yoga, channeling my angst into volunteering for a cause I care about, etc etc. Those feel like an extremely rare luxury these days… but therefore feel even more special when they do happen. And whatever kind of fatigue I’m feeling, I try to accept that it’s ok to feel tired, expected even. Given all the things you mentioned, it would actually be weird if we didn’t feel exhausted? The acceptance and self-compassion pieces are often the hardest parts for me… and of course, some of the most important. So, sadly, no easy tips and tricks over here, but I’m in that swamp with you, and here for trying to make our way through it!
Thank you for beautifully and honestly articulating what we are all feeling. Yes. Yes. Yes. I wish to provide a clever antidote to fatigue and I’m coming up short! So many lattes.